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With these flowers, I hoping to encourage some more warm weather to arrive in the Northeast of North America. It has been a little chilly. One nice thing about spring (here in the northern hemisphere now) is that it breeds new beginnings, fresh starts and hope. For me, spring is about both inspiration and “allowing.” The life force is in a phase that supports growth and upward motion.

In the spring it is very clear that the life force itself, the universal flow, actually is a power in itself that moves us along if we “allow” it to. Part of taking action is the active part, the “yang” in some cultures. Another crucial part of action is the receptive (rather than passive) part, called the “yin” in some cultures.

In many western cultures, such as the U.S., the active or yang aspect is emphasized, over-emphasized according to me. The receptive part of action often gets dismissed in this culture. Being in the flow and allowing is an important part of my creative process. I think that is true for most artists.

But being in the flow is an important part of my living and marketing processes also. I have been learning and acting quite a bit about whole new aspects of interacting and selling on the web. I need to absorb and integrate some of this new information. I need to go inside and allow my soul to guide me now that I have learned quite a few new facts.

Here is part of his comment “Give something away for free in exchange for a name and email address (yup that again). The freebie could be a five step mini-course on how to photograph your pet. After you get that information and the potential customer has received the mini-course, send them an offer to take one of their pet photos and enhance it for $9 to $19.”

I am not a photographer – I am a designer and artist. But it helped me realize what I could give away that would be very unusual. As far as I know, no one else makes these kinds of enhanced animal images. I have shared in my past posts how to do this. But I could put together 5 steps (I guess 5 – I would have to see how it came out) on how to make your own enhanced animal images.

Once people tried it themselves, I might well have more customers! I certainly could not take someone else’s photo and make one of my paintings for $9 to $19. It usually takes me between one and two hours – even with all my setup. Getting an animal companion cut out correctly takes me quite a bit of time. I usually end up using several different masking programs to see which one gives the best result.

But this feels like a great idea for what I have that is unique to give away! I can also offer some more personal insight into me and my journey (also suggested by Chris – he is very insightful). People could choose either or both and then I would feel I was offering something of value. More progress!

When a local person saw some of my other animal images at the local Visitors Center, she called me up and ordered a print of her own dog, Irie. She had a nice photo showing his bright blue eyes. I am delighted that a few orders have come in for people asking me to make their own animal companions into these Enhanced Animal Imges.

In yesterday’s post I talked about online marketing and the next steps to take. I asked for feedback and Chris O’Byrne (www.onlineartsmarketing.com) made a suggestion to start an Ebay store. Chris said that if I made $16 per month, I would cover the costs.

Chris also suggested that I could put single items up for bid and have an “About Me” page. This fits better in with my budget and seems a good way to ease in. I have a couple of friends who have sold there before. But even though they are artists, they sold camera equipment or antiques. But still I can ask them for hints.

Chris also made the suggestion to make a separate website for my enhanced animal images. I am not sure if I will make a separate site within this site (www.dianeclancy.com) for these images – as I have for this blog – or not. It would be a way that I could work out the bugs on shopping carts and my redesigning my art galleries. That might help it feel a little less overwhelming. That begins to sound like a plan.

Online marketing is pretty exciting to me still. It is amazing that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, anyone with computer access can go to certain online galleries and shops and look at and buy my work! I am thrilled that I have work at ArtFlock and Etsy.

Now I need to take this to the next level. It seems like I should open an Ebay store to be more visible and have work available in more places. I am finding there are many places one can have work sold on the web.

I think I could probably spend 18 hours a day keeping up with all that. Obviously, I don’t have that much time to work on selling online. Also, I want to sell only at reputable places. Any information people can share with me (and my readers) about selling online would be appreciated!

I want to thank everyone for help who has been giving me feedback about my business cards. I also went to an online chat about business cards the other night at Self Representing Artists (www.ebsqart.com). It was interesting. I learned about the chat at Alyson Stanfield’s Art Marketing Blog, (www.artbizblog.com).

It is amazing, inspiring and overwhelming how much information and support there is out there on the web. Just amazing! People have been extremely helpful to me as I have getting my blog set up and taking my marketing to another level.

I want to get a newsletter going to keep in touch with my collectors, current and potential. All the advice I have seen says this is a great idea. I have been looking around trying to make decisions – things are not clear to me. When I looked into blogs, it was clear I wanted to use WordPress. I am so glad I did!

But with the newsletter project, I don’t see which way to go right now. It would need to be inexpensive – otherwise it wouldn’t make sense right now. I am not sure why I shouldn’t just ask people for names and emails and then send the list from my email program.

I welcome hearing what others have decided for themselves or what they have researched. Be great to get a topic going discussing this. Thank you!

All kinds of business advice emphazine a mission statement, Unique Selling Proposition (USP), Extra Value Proposition, purpose of business, business philosophy, Value Added and positioning oneself in the market. These are all focused on what makes you and your business unique and what you offer your customer that is compelling to them so that they will choose you and your business.

I have had a mission statement for quite a while that I thought worked very well. In the business class for artists last fall we spent a lot of time tweaking and refining our mission statements. Mine went through several changes as we all gave each other feedback.

But these last two weeks as I have been working on my business card, I have found another very helpful resource that gave me new insights and new ways to look at how I position and market myself, my skills and my work.

There is a site, Online Marketing for Artists, that I am finding very helpful. At this site/blog Chris O’Byrne has tons and tons of information for artists for marketing. Chris was kind enough to share with me some written materials he has about USP. If you sign up for his free newsletter, the next issue is on USP, and I know I am eager to read what he has to say!

I am trying to understand what is different about what he shared with me. It helped me make my written purpose more personal and more directed to you. His information helped me make my mission statement less abstract and impersonal. Instead of telling you what I do and how I do it, I think my USP now speaks directly to you about the benefits for you.

I encourage you to check out his site. By the way, I love this collage painting that I have showcased tonight. For one of my friends, it is his very favorite of all my work. The colors and the image give me a feeling of deep calm.

People’s reactions have been strong enough that I am probably going to do a card horizontally and a card vertically. Most people have very much liked the card – but only one version and not the other. (Most people have really enjoyed the card for my graphic design and web design business – post from a few days ago.) I happen to like them all. (I guess I should since I designed them!)

At this point I would very much appreciate some feedback about the back of this vertical version of the card. I am not sure if the vertical design of the back is innovative and unusual or just plain annoying trying to read the text. Or something else all together.

Is this horizontal version easy to read and what you want to see or just boring and the expected. Is it too weird to have one side vertical and ione side horizontal? Please tell me what you think! I need your help in this one!

I promise tomorrow I will write about mission statements and unique selling proposition. Please do email me or make a comment with your feedback. Thank you!

Today I received a suggestion of how to redesign the business card I am making for myself as an artist. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea (after all, I had an idea that worked!) But I am usually open to others’ suggestions because I find it often enhances my own work and vision.

I would greatly appreciate feedback how people react to this card compared to the horizontal card I created a few days ago. You can see the horizontal card in the post Business Card for Art Business. I do like the fact that the images are a little larger so you can see a bit more detail. But it also feels awkward to me that the list of types of work I create are not visible at the same time as the images themselves. Given that the business cards are for you – the collector (potential or current), I particularly want to hear from you which card would work better for you.

The person making the suggestion wanted to make sure that my Mission Statement was highly visible. Others call this a statement of purpose, Unique Selling Proposition (USP), business philosophy or positioning oneself in the market. Tomorrow I am going to focus on the USP and share my own process, information and resources.

Those of you who have been reading this blog regularly may notice that the icon at the top of the browser bar and in the browser address bar has changed. I have been going through a whole series of images as I have been deciding which would be most effective. I like the eye. This is the icon I am using to represent myself at ArtFlock and Etsy also.

Here is the other business card that I designed yesterday. It focuses on my work for other people as opposed to my own art work. I have gone through a lot of changes deciding which image to use to represent me and my business. I think this image is a keeper for the business card. Colorful and representative of my work without disturbing some people.

I was going to write today about the phrases I have used on the two business cards, but that will have to wait. My dsl is being very finicky this afternoon so I am outside the local library writing this. Tomorrow I will say more about the content of the cards.

I have been working on my business cards for awhile now. Given the variety of my work and mediums (as discussed last week), it has been a conundrum for me trying to decide how to represent myself and my work. For clarification, the border around the card is so you can see where the card begins and ends. A couple of days ago I figured out how I can showcase more than one image in a way I sure hope is effective!

Some of my artist friends are using an image that covers the whole front of their business cards. That can certainly be striking and effective in certain circumstances. But for my business, I do not think it is the right “look.” Given that I already have various lines of work, I think having some information about these different aspects of my art is crucial.

I hope you can read the words all right – I hope that it is dark enough in this jpeg version. In the original, the text is good and dark. I am pleased with how this came out.

I could have made different business cards for the animal series, the design series and my paintings. But that seems a little silly. As I decided last week, (and got support for from people on this blog), color is my unifying theme.

I feel good looking at this card – as if these three aspects of my creativity are respected and nourished. And this touching base with my reactions is core to my creative process – that is how I know something is right according to me.

My enhanced animal images are pretty unique from what I gather. These unusual digital paintings are among my most universally popular images. Often when people see their “own” animal companion, they immediately stop and buy a card – and often all the cards with that particular animal. I have had requests to put people’s own animal companion into a field of flowers. This special series is admired by many.

Continuing with the idea of licensing (from yesterday’s post), I think it makes the most sense to start with the Enhanced Animal Images. There is no question which paintings belong in the collection. Many companies want a group of at least four images so they can create sets of products – like four place mats.

I have plenty of these paintings using a variety of cats and dogs (and even a doe and bear cub). There are a butterfly theme and three flower themes. These images might be marketable to more companies than, say, the Goddess series. All in all, this might be a good place to start.

The Goddess paintings are near and dear to my heart – so perhaps starting with other paintings make sense while I develop the ability to take the inevitable “no thank yous” that will come as I am finding my niches.

The last few days I have been talking about my balance between the creative process and marketing. The two most important pieces of all this are – my creating because I love making art and – my collectors (this means you) acquiring my art. I need to remember that all the other parts of the processes are focused on these two goals – creating and collecting.

Besides my site, I now have two online stores Etsy and ArtFlock. I think I will probably start an eBay store too, but I haven’t done that yet. I am still checking out to see if it makes sense. (Comments are welcome – please share your experience with me and others who read this blog.)

The next big step for me to take is licensing my work to various companies who would like to use my images on their products. I have a friend with experience who was going to help me sort through which places would be most appropriate for me, but unfortunately life has sent her some twists and turns that make her temporarily unavailable.

I have quite a long list of companies who look for artists in order to license artists’ work. I have also done a lot of looking on the web researching different licensing companies. The licensing process has actually changed greatly over the last several years. In some ways it is a little simpler now.

It is getting toward time to figure out which ones to target. You can see that the place interested in “Bottlescape II” and “Flowers IV” (yesterday’s image) may well be different. But they are not the companies who are going to want my Goddess series. This is the stuff I have to sort out.

It feels more concrete and manageable telling you about it and allowing you to share in this process. Thank you for being part of my progression.

Yesterday I spoke of needing to take this creative spring energy (in the northern hemisphere) and transform it into new works of art. Part of the balance that I need to be honing better is making more time to hang out in the creative process.

The art of marketing art is the other part of the equation that needs to be balanced. (Did I ever mention that I was a math major until I changed to art?) I am very excited to have now opened stores in both Etsy and ArtFlock these last few weeks.

Online marketing has been something that I have wanted to pursue for a long time – but I didn’t really know how to start. I have had a simple store in my website for a couple of years, but in a clumsy format. I have gotten a few sales from the site but it is not yet set up to be as easy as it could be.

In these last few weeks I have become able to accept payments through PayPal. I hadn’t realized that someone could pay with credit cards through PayPal even if one doesn’t have a PayPal account. Today I became PayPal verified. I am very excited about having the finances for e-commerce now set up.

I am adding more to my galleries at the online stores. Also, I need to figure out how to best change my site to implement my shopping cart and make life easier for my collectors.

In the Northeast U.S. we are having a week of glorious weather … a week that has drawn many of us outside to tackle gardens and reconnect with the earth more directly. This little fellow (a bear cub) is also awake and checking out the world. I feel very full of life and energy.

My studio is functional again. The weatherizing is finished and the studio is put back together and spring-cleaned. There a many projects all pulling at me – in all sorts of different directions. I am going to have to prioritze!

Being an artist in the modern world is a juggling act. Of course, there is creating art. That IS why most, if not all, of us started in the first place. Creating needs to continue. Sometimes it is easy for me to get diverted into the business of art.

I have to learn how to move more gracefully between the creative process of art and the art of business.

An e-zine came to my In Box during this last week as I have been grappling with my creative style(s). Molly Gordon of Authentic Promotion (www.authenticpromotion.com) wrote an article about “How to Have a Business that Fits Just Right.” Molly talks about Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ house where Goldilocks tried different porridge, chairs, and beds before she found what fit for her. This article was a breath of fresh air for me! The timing was perfect.

I like the way she validates that we all have marketing strategies, pricing strategies, and business strategies – whether or not they are conscious. I believe that would also include creative strategies. My strategies are actually fairly conscious and often honed. So perhaps I AM on track!

I like making plans and making progress toward goals. I am still in the process of learning that I don’t have to prefer porridge too hot or too cold for me. My purpose here is to do MY work MY way – with a lot of outside input and help. Sometimes I forget that it is myself and my vision that I am most responsible to. After all, that is part of what makes me an artist – having a vision and expressing that vision.

Thank you, Molly, for reminding us that we are responsible to find what fits for us – not for the next person. Art and business, like so much of life, is about educating ourselves and making choices that resonate with ourselves. I am delighted to feel back on track of remembering that being honest with and to myself is most important – whew! I know how to do that!

In talking with you this week, I am much more at peace about my creative style … or should I say variety of styles. I am grateful for your sharing of my journey. I am happy enough for now to stick with my colorful, whimsical and uplifting styles – internally there is a cohesiveness. Painting is the key for me right now.

Locally, the CDC (Community Development Corporation) featured a business class for artists last fall. Many types of artists were there – painters, photographers, writers, installation artists, musicians and more. I had been hoping for mostly visual artists because I thought they would be the ones I would have more in common with.

Instead there was an incredible wealth and variety of experience and paths. It was extremely helpful to see that we are each carving out our own path in harmony with our creative needs and practical necessities. We could each share our own ideas, and methods and out of that came an incredibly fertile cross-fertilization.

We discovered in the class that we all had a lot to learn (we already knew that!) but we also realized that we all had valuable insights and experiences. We also found out that there are many resources that can help us but common sense and persistent would take us quite the distance.

My feeling grounded and ok about myself and my own process allow me to hear and absorb others’ help. When I start feeling doubtful and judgemental about myself, my life and my work, it is a distraction from getting on with life. But also part of life – I want to be in balance. The upshot is that once again, I need to listen to the experience and advice of others and listen to my internal intuition.

Thank you for sharing this week’s journey with me as I sorted out how I am and how I want to be in relationship with my painting.